SOPA-like IP Attaché Act draft submitted to US Congress

Fears proposed intellectual property bill could be just as restrictive

Just months after proposed intellectual property bills SOPA, PIPA and ACTA were sent packing by opponents who saw them as a threat to online freedoms, this week has seen two new pieces of legislation likely to stir up similar controversy.

First came CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU, which critics say is being used to bring ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) into law through the back door.

Today, the focus of online freedom campaigners' ire is the IP Attaché Act (IPAA) which, according to the draft bill itself, is designed "to achieve potential benefit by reducing intellectual property infringement in the United States market and globally" and to "work with and advance the interests of United States persons who may otherwise be harmed by violations of intellectual property rights in those countries."

Critics could argue that this wording bears strong resemblance to SOPA's original mission statement. The Stop Online Piracy Act was supposedly intended to protect intellectual property (IP) from theft, until critics began to point out that, in effect, the act could affect freedom of speech on the internet.

The IPAA has been drafted by US Representative Lamar Smith, who brought similar copyright-related contributions to the original SOPA bill.

If passed, IPAA is unlikely to cause the kind of widespread effects that SOPA threatened to have - at the time critics argued that SOPA could potentially give media corporations direct control over international legislation - but it could still conceivably affect freedom of information.